That's a rough thought. Imagine if Go were roughly as popular as, say, Tri-Ominoes, and wasn't taken seriously enough to develop the truly competitive tournament scene it has today.

I want to say that board game players are pretty good at recognizing strategic depth, and that good games naturally rise to the top and become widespread, and their mechanics are reused and evolved in further board games. You certainly see this with Euro-style board games at least.